


i found a lover (we roll around beneath these sheets)

by settledthesun



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Based on the assumption that Root and Shaw had been sleeping together up until 4x11, Character Study, F/F, Non-Explicit Sex, POV Sameen Shaw, pre-4x11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-28 15:44:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5096168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/settledthesun/pseuds/settledthesun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Maybe in another world she would have left with Tomas. In another she might never have ended up working with Finch and Reese. She might never have had that first encounter with Root, a burning iron inches away from her chest.</p><p>This world, it is becoming rapidly apparent, is collapsing. It would be understandable to wish for another one.</p><p>But somehow, with the city lights illuminating the room, and the feel of Root’s (poorly concealed) smile as she kisses her, she can’t bring herself to care right now.'</p><p>or</p><p>The moments we didn't see between Root and Shaw pre-4x11</p>
            </blockquote>





	i found a lover (we roll around beneath these sheets)

**Author's Note:**

> so i binge-watched this show a couple of months ago and i fell so damn hard for it. i'll admit i started watching for root/shaw, but every aspect of the show is so, so good. i adore every dynamic and each character's view on morality/philosophy/good & evil, etc, but root and shaw in particular hold a special place in my heart. 
> 
> this fic is from shaw's pov. whilst i relate to shaw more than i do a lot of other characters, this is the first time writing a character as explicitly neurodivergent as shaw (which is one of my favourite parts of the show) so i did my best to do this respectfully, and please let me know if i screwed up in anyway! i was also inspired by amy and sarah's comments at nycc where they basically confirmed what we all assumed, which is that root and shaw have been hooking up for a while. so this works as a sameen shaw character study/my idea of what the moments between these two that we didn't see might have been like in the first half of season 4
> 
> title is a variation taken from halsey's 'coming down'

>  
> 
> _‘i've got a lover, a love like religion_  
>  _i’m such a fool for sacrifice._
> 
> _‘i found a martyr, she told me that I’d never_  
>  _with her educated eyes and her head between my thighs.’  
>    
>  _                                  - coming down, halsey
> 
>  
> 
>  

When Shaw turns her attention towards the needy customer, imagining what it would feel like to jab a tube of expensive lipstick into her ‘boss’s’ eye, she can safely say that Root had been the last person she had expected to see.

It had been a month since they had all been forced to go separate ways. She’d spoken to Reese and Finch a couple of times, but only when using incredibly vague codenames and burner phones, or ‘pretending to bump into an old friend from college at the park.’ Shaw hated it just as much as Finch had probably expected her to. She’d also only seen Bear a handful of times. That bummed her out the most. Finch just didn’t know where to get his favourite kind of kibble from like she did.

But she hadn’t seen Root at all. Not since they’d shared glances after tackling Samaritan’s servers, when Shaw had turned away first, resigned to her new life. She hadn’t known if they’d ever see each other again.

Which is why it’s understandable, really, that Shaw feels something close to relief at seeing the other woman across store, knowing that she hadn’t been gunned down my Samaritan agents, or something worse.

But then Root is sending her an obnoxious wink, grinning her predatory-like smile when she catches Shaw’s gaze drop to her mouth as she sucks on her straw.

That’s all it takes to remind Shaw of how fucking intolerable this woman actually is.

But hey, if Root’s here, maybe it means she’ll actually get to shoot someone.

 

 

She does get to shoot someone.

But only because Reese is in need of some help, and despite the fact that it’s really very clearly a bad idea, they have a kid to save, and neither of them are just gonna walk away.

In a way, it feels like this never stopped. She rolls her eyes at Reese’s smart-ass one-liners, takes out a couple of kneecaps with her rifle, and has Reese’s back as he plays the big damn hero.

And she smiles, really smiles, for the first time in weeks, because this is what she’s supposed to be doing. Not standing behind a make-up counter all day, not hiding from some all-seeing AI, but doing what she’s good at and helping a few people out along the way.

She decides it’s because of the good mood that the night’s events had put her in that she doesn’t promptly put a decent helping of staples through Root’s hand when she shows up at her work again out of the blue.

And she pretends it’s also because of her good mood that she doesn’t immediately throw Root out of her car when she slides in after work to find the other woman reclining comfortably in the passenger seat.

‘Get out of my car.’

‘Do you like it? It was the best the Machine could do to appropriately match a person with your supposed income.’

‘Yeah, it’s my dream car,’ Shaw replies snarkily. ‘But I personally prefer it when you’re not in it. So, out.’

‘But Sameen, we haven’t seen each other in so long.’ Root says, unashamedly letting her gaze sweep Shaw’s frame. ‘And I have to say, I most definitely appreciate you in that dress.’

Root’s fingers play with the hem of the black material, before skirting underneath and brushing along soft skin. Shaw jerks away in response, but one glance at Root shows that she’s by no means deterred. And maybe it’s the fact that it’s been a while, or that Shaw has to begrudgingly admit that Root looks hot in her own dark blue dress, that she puts the car into drive and says, ‘whatever, just don’t scuff the leather,’ and, twenty five minutes later, doesn’t complain when Root follows her into her apartment.

 

 

 

Somewhere along the line, it starts to become a regular thing.

‘It’ being nights like this one, with Shaw’s fingers making quick work of the buttons on Root’s shirt whilst sucking bruises onto the white of the other woman’s neck, secretly delighting in the gasp it elicits.

Shaw’s never been one for any type of commitment, and it was rare for her to ever sleep with the same person more than once.

But when faced with a looming apocalypse that only a handful of people on the planet seem to actually know about, it’s easier to stick with the few that do.

She tells herself that’s what this is: convenience, and the fact that Root’s just as enthusiastic in the bedroom as she is in every other aspect of her life – well, that doesn’t hurt.

She reminds herself of it every time Root’s gaze sweeps up and down her frame whenever they’re in the subway together, only half paying attention to Finch’s instructions, or when Root seemingly appears out of thin air at the make-up counter, pouting and demanding a new lip colour.

Every so often it starts to eat away at Shaw a little bit, like when Root’s reluctant to leave afterwards, or when Shaw catches her watching her silently, lower lip worried between her teeth.

But she’s never been one to dwell.

And now, with Root trapped between herself and the wall, Shaw hurriedly shoves her hand into her pants, and figures it’s not worth thinking about right now.

 

 

 

She doesn’t always notice right away when Root’s gone.

She’s used to it at this point.

Root comes and goes, blowing into the subway one day, annoyingly chipper, and often donning a ridiculous cover identity, and the next she’s calling from Budapest, leaving cryptic messages and signing off to the sound of gunfire.

Shaw’s usually so caught up in their current number that it’s often only when Root’s voice will appear in her ear making some nonchalant comment about the weather in Russia that she will realise she’s half way across the fucking world doing god knows what for the damn Machine.

Shaw will offer an eye roll and short, sharp comment before focusing her attention back to the mission at hand. When that’s over she might go for a drink with Reese and Fusco, cracking her sore joints and trying not to moan at the first pull of cold beer after a long day of chasing perps around the city.

Other days she gets home from working the make-up counter 9 to 5, and will shovel down takeout before passing out on top of her covers, ready to do the same tomorrow.

Who knew retail work could give the whole ‘saving the world’ job a run for its money on the stress level?

 

 

She doesn’t bat an eyelid anymore when Root pays her a visit after one of her trips.

The first time, Root had knocked and Shaw had promptly shut the door in her face.

The second, Shaw had almost put a bullet in her kneecap when she’d heard someone moving around in her kitchen.

(When she found Root rummaging around in her fridge, she had still considered pulling the trigger.)

Now, when she hears movement in another room she doesn’t even bother to check (she can identify Root by the sound of her footsteps alone which, whatever, she was a marine, they were taught this shit) and just continues disassembling her gun or towelling off her wet hair.

This continues until either Shaw storms out to demand she gets the hell out of her apartment, or Root, bored of the lack of attention, enters Shaw’s room, an innuendo on the tip of her tongue.

What follows depends on how things have been going with the numbers; with Samaritan.

Sometimes Root will burst in, the Machine talking away in her ear, and she’ll throw Shaw a weapon or a disguise and motion for her to follow, disappearing out the door as quickly as she came. Shaw will grab her jacket and follow in her footsteps, listening to the Machine’s second-hand instructions with only minimal eye rolling.

Other times Shaw will find Root searching through her bathroom cabinet, doing a piss-poor job of bandaging up a wound acquired from whatever trouble she just narrowly avoided, and Shaw will (gently) shove her out of the way, before grunting ‘you suck at this, you’re gonna bleed out one day’ before stitching Root up in whatever way she needs.

(On times like these, she’ll try to ignore the way Root’s grateful gaze takes her in, a soft smile tugging at her lips.)

But most of the time, Shaw will walk out of her bedroom to Root lounging carelessly on her kitchen counter, head tilted and eyes already roaming over Shaw.

‘How was Stockholm?’ Shaw will ask, shortening the distance between the two of them, but always coming to a stop a couple of feet away.

‘Violent,’ Root will answer carelessly, legs crossed and leather jacket hanging loosely off of her lithe frame.

‘Sounds fun.’ Her voice is monotone, still standing her ground.

At this point Root will hop down from her position, closing the distance between them as she says something like ‘but let’s not talk about that now,’ or ‘speaking of fun’ and in a second Shaw will have her pressed against the counter as their lips meet, all teeth and tongue.

Perhaps there’s an ‘I missed you’ in their actions; in Shaw’s hands running up and down Root’s thighs, but it will never be voiced. This is the closest they come to any acknowledgment of what the time apart does to them. It’s just the way it works. Root will disappear, usually without warning, and Shaw will carry on shifting cosmetics and knocking out drug pushers or would-be-murderers, and when Root returns they’ll make each other feel good for a few hours until the Machine tells them what to do next.

It’s a routine of sorts, and it works for them. It works for Shaw.

(One time Root is gone for a whole month and only manages to check in twice.

Shaw kneecaps twice the amount of perps she usually would, and dreams of Root’s voice in her ear.)

 

 

 

They don’t share a bed.

Root doesn’t live anywhere permanent, always jumping between hotels and safehouses, so when there is a bed involved, it’s Shaw’s.

They’ll fall back onto the mattress in a frenzy of touches and gasps until they’re panting and exhausted. There will usually be a moment where they both attempt to catch their breath, before Shaw is giving Root a shove towards the clothes strewn across the room.

Root had complained the first time and refused to leave until Shaw physically pushed out of the bed and onto the floor with a thud. Having learned her lesson, Root became much more compliant to Shaw’s wishes, but didn’t refrain from some light complaining.

‘One day, Sameen. One day you may just find yourself wanting a cuddle buddy and I won’t be here,’ she says, fastening her bra.

‘Never say the words ‘cuddle’ or ‘buddy’ ever again.’

 

 

Two days later, Shaw finds a parcel waiting for her on her makeshift desk at the subway station.

When she unwraps it to find a t-shirt with the words ‘#1 Cuddle Buddy’ on it, she marches to the nearest abandoned parking lot, throws it into a trashcan and promptly sets it on fire.

Root is delighted.

 

 

 

And then Harold is telling her that Root hasn’t been seen since a suicide mission involving Simon and Samaritan agents and ‘it’s going to be a long fight, but it must be won at any cost.’

She’s not sure why it bothers her so much. Root’s been gone for weeks on end before with only minimal contact; this shouldn’t be anything new. But she usually lets Shaw know what’s going on eventually, and Shaw will huff back that she doesn’t care, and for Root to stop using up the comm link when she needs to talk to John about the number.

But this time, there’s nothing. She leaves Root in the hotel room with Harold without a second glance to go scout the perimeter, assuming that she’ll meet up with them again later that night, or at least the next morning. So when Harold tells her that he lost Root somewhere amidst the flurry of bullets, she’s pissed.

She knows that Root would absolutely die for her Machine, but she never thought she’d be so dumb about it.

She spends the next few days throwing herself into the current number; smacking around a couple of petty thieves and disarming a bomb, because of course it would be too much to ask for a day off. It takes her mind off Root, at least, or the lack of her.

So a few days later, when she answers a quiet knock at her door to find Root slumped against the door frame, blood seeping through a shoddily bandaged arm, Shaw only takes a couple of seconds to remind Root of what an idiot she is, before hauling her good arm over her shoulder, and leading her into the bathroom.

‘What were you thinking?’ she hisses, inspecting the bullet wounds that had reopened.

‘Thought you might be interested in a nightcap,’ Root slurs, head falling back against the mirror.

Shaw doesn’t hesitate to press her thumb into one of the wounds a little. If Root’s going to be an asshole, so can she, giving a smug smirk when Root hisses in pain.

‘We couldn’t let Samaritan get Simon. We couldn’t let them win.’

‘So you thought offering yourself up on an unarmed, silver platter was the answer?’

‘They didn’t get me. I’m here, aren’t I?’

‘Yeah, on the brink of bleeding out. Where the hell have you been?’

‘I needed to lay low for a few days until I could be sure I’d lost them. I coerced a particularly pleasant doctor into stitching me up in Brooklyn, but I ran into a little trouble during a mission She gave me.’

‘Well maybe that goddam machine should understand that you need a day off.’

‘We don’t have the luxury of vacation, Sam.’

‘Yeah, well, the luxury of not dying wouldn’t go amiss right about now.’

Root looks up at her at this, eyes still unfocused, but with a level of attentiveness not previously present.

‘That should hold,’ Shaw says gruffly, nodding at the stitches. She retrieves a bottle from the cabinet and empties a couple of painkillers into the palm of her hand. ‘Take these. They’ll help you sleep.’

Root goes to put them in her pocket, but Shaw grabs her wrist.

‘Now. You can crash here. I’m not being held responsible for Samaritan finally catching you because you passed out on the street.’

Root nods once, thankfully choosing not to comment. She attempts to stand, grimacing at the pain, and Shaw sighs heavily before helping manoeuvre her out of the bathroom.

If Root’s surprised when they pass by the couch, and Shaw instead steers them into the bedroom, she doesn’t show it. She just lets Shaw lower her onto the bed, thanking her when she fetches her a glass of water for the pills.

Shaw grunts something about letting her know if she needs anything and is halfway through the door when Root’s voice stops her.

‘Sameen?’

Shaw pauses, but doesn’t turn around.

‘I’m sorry.’ Shaw’s ready to respond with a shrug of indifference when Root adds, ‘for not saying goodbye.’

Shaw’s body tenses, her grip on the doorway tightening until her fingertips become sore. She can hear Root’s breathing even out.

She doesn’t relax until she’s sure Root’s asleep.

 

 

After tossing and turning on the couch for an hour or so, she gives up and gets herself a glass of water, perching on her window ledge to stare out at the city. The low sound of sirens can be heard in the distance; a constant in New York, but the silence hangs heavily in her apartment.

After internally debating with herself for a few minutes, she sets the glass down and heads into the bedroom.

Root is spread out atop the covers, head lolling to one side. She looks different. Shaw realises with a start that it’s the calmness of her sleeping expression. She’s so used to seeing Root’s excitement at the Machine’s wishes, or anxiety at the outcome of a mission, that the sight of a peaceful Root, free from worry, takes her aback.

She looks younger.

She sits herself down in the chair across from the bed, and makes herself comfortable, legs spread out before her.

She thinks about the medical professionals who told her she would never be a doctor; that her inability to care for her patients would be her downfall.

She watches the rise and fall of Root’s chest as she sleeps.

Maybe they were wrong.

 

 

 

Root has enough tact to know not to make a big deal out of the fact she wakes up in the morning to find Shaw crumpled awkwardly in the chair across from her.

She just gives her a small smile, before averting her attention to the ceiling. Shaw’s seen this happen enough times to know that the Machine is already chattering away in her ear, filling her head with information. Sometimes Shaw wonders how she handles it all without her brain exploding.

 

 

A few hours later when they walk into the subway together, Shaw tries to ignore the cautious glance Harold offers the two of them, or the way his gaze lingers a little longer Root before he turns away to type something into his computer.

She think that Root’s eyes, too, stay on her for a little too long.

She shrugs it off and heads to the back room, in dire need of a little weight training.

It’s easier not to think when her muscles are burning.

 

 

 

Tomas is attractive.

Very attractive, and his proficiency in thievery doesn’t hesitate to get Shaw hot under the collar. Maybe she’ll actually get to have a little fun with this number.

But then his hand is on her thigh, and just when she thinks she might be able to allow herself this, Root is in her ear talking about zip-ties and safehouses, and suddenly the hand is softer, more gentle and demanding all at once, and Shaw’s back there with Root, the first time anything ever happened between them.

But in all her thirty-two years, Shaw has never allowed herself to confuse sex with attachment, and she’s sure as hell not about to now. So she shuts off her comm link and –

‘Do you want to get out of here?’

 

 

 

_‘This could take all night.’_

  
  


 

 

So she might have implied that she cared. So what?

She’s been chasing these weird-ass band of vigilantes around for the last two years, it’s not a big deal that she’s come to not totally hate them. To not totally hate Root.

And it also shouldn’t be a big deal that when Root hisses ‘could he have made you feel like this’ into her ear, a hand between her thighs and breath hot against her cheek, that it sends a shiver down Shaw’s spine, and she’s torn between punching Root in the face and returning the favour.

It doesn’t mean anything that Shaw knows that catching Root’s left earlobe between her teeth will make her breath hitch, but that placing the gentlest of kisses behind her right ear, just below her scar, will make her sigh.

It’s completely irrelevant that Shaw’s favourite sight has become Root’s back arching off the bed, the feel of her fingers tugging at her hair.

Maybe in another world she would have left with Tomas. In another she might never have ended up working with Finch and Reese. She might never have had that first encounter with Root, a burning iron inches away from her chest.

This world, it is becoming rapidly apparent, is collapsing. It would be understandable to wish for another one.

But somehow, with the city lights illuminating the room, and the feel of Root’s (poorly concealed) smile as she kisses her, she can’t bring herself to care right now.

 

 

 

Root drugs her and she decides she takes back every not-awful thing she’s ever thought about that fucking woman.

 

 

 

She gets it, she does.

But that doesn’t mean she isn’t fucking furious.

(Harold’s peace offering improves things, but only marginally. He didn’t get the mustard to bread ratio right at all.)

She doesn’t know why the others are so hell-bent on keeping her locked up, when it seems pretty clear that Samaritan is gonna destroy everything any second now.

She can see that Harold’s on the brink of losing it, but Root, at least, is trying to act normal; spitting out innuendos and smiling widely at the thought of danger.

She announces she’s heading downtown and grabs her jacket from where she’d thrown it on Harold’s desk. As she heads for the door, she makes a point to stoop down to where Shaw is perched on the bench, balling up her empty sandwich bag, and presses a kiss to her cheek.

‘Play nice,’ she whispers, making for the exit before Shaw can throw the bag in her face.

Whilst she makes a show of wiping her cheek with her hand, a part of her notes that the kiss felt uncharacteristically cold.

 

 

 

Root lied to her.

Okay, she didn’t lie, exactly. But she made them think she was just going to scope out what was going on downtown, and then suddenly she was agreeing to offer herself up as a vessel in the meeting of arguably the two most powerful creations on the planet.

There’s no way in Hell that was going to go smoothly.

 

 

_‘There’s one thing of which I am most certain. Root is not alone.’_

 

 

Fuck Harold, fuck the Machine, and fuck Root and her loyalty to a goddamn artificial intelligence.

 

 

 

She talks a guy out of blowing up a subway cart.  
  


Mostly she’s just pissed that it had to happen today; that he wasted so much time when she should have been with the others, helping them take down Samaritan.

But, if she’s being honest with herself, there’s also a part of herself that is a little pleased that she had gotten through to him. That she’d made him see he didn’t have to do it.

She only allows herself that feeling for a second, before she’s getting the code from their guy, and racing to make it to the stock exchange.  
  


_Here we go_ , she thinks. _Here we fucking go._

 

 

 

_‘Hey Sweetie, you busy?’_

Even when Root’s nearly out of bullets, hands covered in blood, she still finds the time to annoy Shaw.

At least she’s consistent.

 

 

 

_‘We’re so good at this together. You’re gonna figure that out someday.’_

_Yeah, sure Root_ , Shaw doesn’t say. _Maybe someday_.

 

 

 

_‘Sameen, if you even think I’m gonna let you-.’_

_‘Oh, for God’s sakes.’_

 

 

There’s an eyeroll, of course, because this is exactly the kind of shit she’s always wanted to avoid.

But she’s made up her mind; knows she’s probably going to die, or at least take some serious bullets. And Root is looking at her with those eyes, the ones that have never been able to hide her feelings, and Shaw finally realises that Root loves her. She loves her too much, so much that Shaw knows she’d probably die for her, just like she would for her machine, and there’s no way Sameen’s going to let that happen.

She might not know if she really returns Root’s feelings, if she even has the capability to, but she knows she can do this for her.

So she kisses her.

It only lasts a few seconds, but it lingers longer than any of their other kisses ever have, desperate in an entirely different way, and it feels final.

Then she pushes her into Fusco’s arms, locks the gate, and heads for the button.

It only takes a few seconds for the first bullet to tear into her, and the second follows not long after.

As she’s lying on the floor, she can’t turn her head but she can hear Root’s screams, echoing through the room. The mechanical sound of the lift can also be heard, and she knows she did her job. Just like a good soldier always does.

The blonde Samaritan agent steps into her line of vision (she never bothered to learn her name, and she takes some kind of satisfaction in that) and she gives Shaw a look of sick triumph, before raising her gun to aim straight at her head.

Shaw lifts her gaze.

She hears Root’s desperate cries; hears grunts coming from Fusco and Harold as they try to hold her back. There’s silence from John.

Just before the doors close, before the others disappear forever, she hears a final cry from Root.

‘Sameen,’ she begs. Sameen. It sounds a little like a prayer.

And then, the doors finally close, and she’s on her own.

If she had the strength, she’d aim one last smirk at the bitch standing over her; at Samaritan. But she doesn’t, so instead she looks straight down the barrel of the gun and doesn’t blink.

 

_Here we fucking go._


End file.
